NEW DELHI, Dec 11 (Reuters) - India's palm oil imports are likely to have
fallen in November from October levels, which were the highest in at least
three years, as demand shrank with the start of cold weather that solidifies
the oil, a Reuters survey showed.
Palm oil imports by the world's top vegetable oil buyer were 840,379 tonnes
in October, the last month of the 2011/12 marketing year, as importers raced to
buy record stocks in Malaysia ,
the world's No. 2 producer of the edible oil.
Palm oil imports could have dropped 22.8 percent in November to 648,750
tonnes, the average of forecasts in a survey of eight traders showed on
Tuesday.
"Palm oil imports are expected to fall with the start of the winter
season and also because of higher domestic supplies of edible oils," said
Sat Narain Agarwal, a Delhi-based trader.
Demand for crude palm oil (CPO) usually shrinks in winter as the tropical
oil freezes at lower temperatures, while supplies of domestic cooking oil
improve as the crushing season for summer harvested oilseed crops such as
soybeans gathers momentum.
Traders said CPO imports were likely to have been about 580,000 tonnes last
month, while refined, bleached and deodorised (RBD) palmolein imports could
have been 72,500 tonnes according to the average of the survey, with a range of
50,000-100,000 tonnes.
In October, India
imported 768,336 tonnes of CPO and 61,544 tonnes of RBD palmolein - a record
for monthly total palm oil imports in data going back to October 2009,
according to the Mumbai-based Solvent Extractors' Association of India (SEA).
The SEA is expected to release its monthly import data for November later
this week.
India's refined palm oil imports started a downward trend after duties were
raised in August to curb cheap purchases from Indonesia, the world's top palm
oil producer, which had tweaked export duties last year to promote its
downstream product.
More than half of India 's
16-17 million tonnes of edible oils demand is met via imports. A population
that is growing at the rate of about 19 million people a year, along with an
increasingly wealthy middle class, support higher demand.
About 77 percent of India 's
cooking oil imports are palm oils, while soft oils such as soy and sunflower
make up the rest.
The Reuters survey also suggested total vegetable oil imports, including
non-edible oils, would fall 25.6 percent in November to 770,375 tonnes from the
previous month.
Traders said monthly edible oil imports could fall for the second straight
month in December as domestic supplies pick up.
Imports of soyoil and sunflower are likely to have dropped last month as
their prices were higher by about $15 per tonne in comparison with October,
mainly on concerns due to the slow pace of soybean planting in South America .
Soyoil imports are likely to have fallen 57.9 percent to 38,750 tonnes last
month.
The survey showed average estimated stocks at Indian ports at the end of
November fell by 3.2 percent to 705,000 tonnes from October.
Traders attributed the drop in imports to a slowdown in demand after Diwali,
the festival of lights, when appetite for fried foods increases as families eat
large meals together.
"Edible oil imports could fall to around 700,000 tonnes in December in
the absence of any seasonal demand trigger in the market," Agarwal said.
